What's In There Wednesday

Today's topic is "What's In Your Pantry?" 

When Tom and I decided to remodel our kitchen we hired a man who was the husband of one of Tom's co-workers. He was a craftsman who worked out of his garage and when he came into our house I was at work. Every time. I never met the man. I left him drawings and notes on what I wanted and, when he saw them, he ripped them to shreds and left me a different drawing.

One thing I really wanted was a pantry with a door. I explained it as sort of a closet with shelves and room to store a broom. Looking back on it, I'm not sure why the broom was so important but it was the one thing I kept insisting I needed. Room for a broom.

Instead, our craftsman told Tom that he had designed something "all housewives fall in love with" in his own version of a pantry. I gave in and the man went to work designing my kitchen to his specs and satisfaction. The end result was this:

This is a cabinet that pulls out, and after our craftsman finished building it, he made my mother climb inside it to demonstrate stability. Which he wanted her to pass on to me. I have to admit that after I saw it I did fall in love with it, despite no room for my broom.

Thus, today I shall use it for the focus of What's In Your Pantry. My "pantry" has several adjustable shelves and there is an order to my shelving.

The top shelf is for our cereal. There really isn't a box of cereal that doesn't fit in here, although we sometimes have to twist the giant "family size" boxes sideways to get them into the nook.

The second shelf is for other breakfast items such as Poptarts, instant Carnation breakfast mix, and oatmeal. Also on this shelf is the peanut butter, honey, and syrup.

The third shelf is for crackers, cookies, and snacks and the shelf below it is the Italian area with pasta, sauces, canned tomatoes, pastes, and salsa.

Below the Italian nook is the staple foods such as dry beans, varieties of rice, and bread crumbs.

The next nook or shelving is my canned goods section. I have any and all canned foods including soups, vegetables, beans, and fruits.

The seventh shelf is the baking shelf. Currently, I have box mixes for cakes and muffins along with tubs of frosting, and apparently some Mexican food. And also two bags of Chips Ahoy cookies. Not because I plan to bake them but because it was BOGO and Tom and I both made a grocery run and took advantage of that deal. I suppose the baking shelf is also an overflow area.

The last shelf is for all the extras that I buy on sale or because we will eventually run out of that item soon. I'm not sure why the Chip Ahoy cookies aren't down there, but I have ketchup, jellies, salad dressings, soy sauce, olives, and odds and ends we receive as gifts. A lot of the time, the items on this shelf get forgotten. Oh, yes, that's why the cookies are one up. I'm more likely to see them there. 

My "pantry" holds quite a lot and gets organized and cleaned about once a month. It was just done yesterday (in preparation for this blog entry), but it won't last long like this once the kids and hubby start rooting around.

It doesn't take up much space, is out of the way, and there is no door. Everyone who sees it wants one just like it, but unfortunately, my craftsman changed careers soon after he finished my kitchen. He is now a forensic crime scene technician and I try not to think how my kitchen was his last creation before changing into that career.

Oh, and we still haven't met.